KARACHI: The Sindh government on Wednesday launched Covid-19 vaccination across the province, inoculating 50-year-old and above prisoners along with staff members of the jail administration.

An official said the prisoners were vaccinated in line with the government programme designed to specifically benefit those in jails as that section of society was highly vulnerable and neglected.

“We have ample supply of vaccines to carry out the programme in the prison and we hope to achieve the target within the next few days,” said a senior health official supervising the whole exercise.

“The health minister has very clear directives to give priority to the prisoners who largely remain ignored during such epidemics or pandemics. During the campaign, we would also vaccinate some 600 jail officials who are 50 years old and above. The operation across the province remained smooth and organised.”

The health department earlier announced vaccination of prisoners over the age of 50 starting from April 7. According to the officials during the first phase of the drive, prisoners in the age group of 50 and above will receive their shots from the seventh of this month, under which more than 2,500 inmates will be vaccinated.

“Although the Sindh prisons largely remained unaffected during the third wave, the authorities decided to take pre-emptive move amid growing number of cases in other parts of the country,” said a jail official.

“It was [during] the second wave when the number of active coronavirus cases in Sindh’s prisons had risen from 31 to 112 in a span of 10 days. The situation had led to some major steps which included restriction on family visits for meeting with inmates to once in 10 days. Earlier, prisoners were allowed to meet their families twice a week.”

He said the jail administration was taking all due measures and strictly following standard operating procedures (SOPs) identified by the health authorities.

“There are over 18,000 inmates in 22 jails of Sindh,” said the official. “The prisons in the provinces have a total capacity of 13,000 prisoners. So, in the pandemic, it is always inevitable that the virus would rear its head again in Sindh’s crowded jails.”

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2021